guesten and the party lines with former wisconsin senator russ feingold, new england, susan page and ron brownstein. i'm candy crowley and this is "state of the union." good morning on an historic sunday here in washington, d.c. president obama will take the oath of office for his second term after this morning in a private ceremony at the white house. the constitution requires that he be sworn in by noon, january 20th. vice president joe biden was sworn in a short time ago, justice sonia sotomayor administering the oath. the president and vice president have just arrived at arlington national cemetery where they will place a wreath at the tomb of the unknown of. we will bring that ceremony to you live when it begins. president obama's public swearing-in takes place tomorrow

on the west front of the u.s. capitol. we are told in his inaugural speech he will not include any new proposals or call out, if you will, any of his political opponents. arlington that's your, you see the president and vice president, what has become a tradition, which is to go to the to tomb of the unknown of and, of course, pay homage to those who make plays like this possible.

[ drumbeats ] [ "taps" ]

>> so there you have it, what has become a traditional inaugural day activity, a salute from the commander in chief and his vice president at the tomb of the unknowns. joining me now, don bare, a former chief speechwriter for president clinton and dave gerson, with the "washington post." going took the words what is going to happen on the podium behind us tomorrow, strikes me how beautiful the ceremony is because everything that was -- that is enshrined there as the sacrifice, is what makes today and tomorrow possible. so, it's nice sort of symmetry, i think, for presidents to do this but let's talk about the times right now and what this president, 'cause every ining in ral speech is particular to the times and the person, what does this president do tomorrow?

>> he -- this is a progress report, right? it's many things. it's a national mission statement, but it's also a progress report, right? he is midway through his presidency at this point. this is the teenage years. you have seen some of the problems, how do they go forward, both for this president and the nation. the country right now really requires it be brought together around some sense of common purpose but not enough for that just to be a statement of unity. this has to be a statement of direction, of forward momentum, about where we are going to move and how he is going to move us there as president. >> how do you do that michael, if where the president wants to move the country is not necessarily conducive to the kind of unity that he needs move it. that there are republicans who think some of the things he has been talking about recently are not thing these want to have happen? >> i think you have to address the divisions of our country and

transcend this edge in some way by calling attention to the values that unite our country and move us forward. you know, when i worked on our first inaugural address, i went back and read all of the previous inaugural addresses and many of the best among them are speeches of unity. they call attention, there are common values, put this moment in the context of history and they show some democratic grace. i think the president -- right now, we have a very small politics. these an opportunity for a speechwriter and a president, in this case. if you give a large, generous speech, i think that you call attention to your own largeness in this political system and you can -- i think that's good thing for the president to do. >> or do you, don, at this point? this is a president pretty rough on republicans for the last six weeks or so, in terms of some very, very sharp rhetoric. so if he goes up there and now says can't we all just bring together and the country if he does that does it then ring

hollow? how do you bring truth to those words? >> this is a new, feisty obama we are seeing since the elections, that's for sure, a question who he will be, as he moves into the second term slam. lot of talk about lincoln's second inaugural, which i think by standards is the gold standard and the greatest of the second inaugural addresses that we know. >> because? >> because it came at the pivotal moment of maximum peril for the nation and it was a real statement about how we could be larger as a democracy and reembrace those who had been against the country and come back together. but i have been looking at franklin ross vel's second inaugur inaugural, 1937, which is interesting, because it was a very can candid, honest progress report about what had not yet been accomplished coming out of the great depression but also a statement how we had to come together, useself government as the most noble expression. and use very precise terms, if

you go back and look that the speech there is very real room for president obama now to say to the country, these are the things that will are left undone that we, together, must find a way to do >> michael, as a speechwriter first, who would you look at to kind of -- who's analogous at this point for president obama and his speechwriters to look back. just tell us, first you and then don, how do you write that sentence that gets engraved, you know know, on some granite somewhere 50 years from now? >> this is the most formal of all the speeches the president gives. you are trying for high rhetoric in a speech like this they don't all succeed. 16 second infalling in ras, not too many of them are memorable, except the most memorable in american history. >> the ones michael and i worked on. >> yes, of course. >> i do think that you can't really write for granite.

you write where is this moment in the broad context of american history and the great purposes of american history? and i think the president does need to address, in a forthright manner, the profound political polarization in our society, polarization between congress and the president that produces gridlock and polarization of opportunity in our country, where there's stalled mobility at the bottom of our country, durable problems about the opportunity of the nation, promise of the nation. you don't have to do it in a pollyanna way but a forthright way and make historical points about those issues. >> how, at the end of it all right two of you judge about how good or how eh a speech was? >> i will be looking first for the length. we always tend to writ second inaugurals way too long. i think shorter is better here. honestly, i will be looking to

see whether he is able to call for common purpose but to do it in a way that isn't too blousy and out there and timeless but is, in fact, timely, speaks to this moment and speaks to the people today in this country and giuliani the leaders here in washington who have to move us forward. >> michael? >> i will just say if he seeks to use the speech for leverage, political leverage, it will be small. if he writes a large, generous speech, he will actually gain leverage in the system, he will put the system itself on a different plane than himself and the presidency. >> set the tone for the ambitious things he will outline in the state of the union? >> america is bigger than these small fights we have been having. >> the right thing. >> michael gerson, dan bae. >> are we have unanimity here. >> we can agree. >> right. exactly. thank you both so much for your time. when we returning the second term and what it bodes for the white house. we are our interview with senior

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i'm candy crowley on the national mall in washington. joining me, senior white house adviser david plouffe. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me, candy. >> tomorrow's speech, tonally i explain it to me in a word or two >> i think it's going to be a hopeful speech. i will let the president speak for himself, obviously. what he is going to do i think is remind the country that our foundi founding principles and values can guide us in a modern, changing world. he will talk about the fact that our political system doesn't require us to settle all of our differences or revolve all of our dispute bus doesn't compel us to act on what is common ground. >> some unity. >> sure. i think the speeches need to be viewed as a package. we have a state of the union in three weeks. inaugural address he will lay out his vision for his second term and where he thinks the country needs to go in the years ahead, the values undergirding that and a detailed agenda and blueprint in the state of the union. we view these speeches as a package. >> let me talk to you about the

president's tone between the election and now you in light of the fact that he did want to talk about things we can do on common ground. and these are just a couple of the things that he said at a white house news conference recently. take a listen. >> and republicans in congress have two choices here, they can act responsibly and pay america's bills or they can act irresponsibly and put america through another economic crisis. what i will not do is to have that negotiation with a gun at the head of the american people. >> so there was that. there was his reference, you need call people on capitol hill, if they are against my gun legislation, they care about the nra more than little first graders. these -- you talk to republicans and even some democrats are sort of push away things and a lot of talk about the president is now decided bipartisanship is not possible and he is going to come

out sort of that stronger, here is what i want and we will push it through. >> we think bipartisanson eminently possible. >> if you subject your opponent he is don't care about first graders being killed? >> our point is we are trying to enlist the american people in these debates. the only way change is going to happen, we make progress the american people. one of the lessons of the first term. they need to be involve ted center of this and pushing here. support for, you know, clip legislation, universal background checks, balanced deficit reduction, huge majority, even in the republican party. the barrier to progress here in many respects, whether it is deficits, measures to help economy, immigration, gun safety legislation, there's huge support amongst all independents, democrats and republicans throughout the country. the barrier is there's factions here in congress, republicans in congress out of the mainstream. we need to bring the american people to-to-these debates. >> do you need to bring the american people into these debate buys suggesting evil motivation by your opponents? i think that's what -- you know, it's hard to see a president

calling you for unity when he is suggesting that people who disagree with him don't disagree with him on policy but because they care more about the nra or they don't care, in the case of the debt ceiling, whether the country falls into recession again? is that the way to go about it? >> the debt ceiling it is truth. think about this, can dirk the first time in our country. >> reminding people president himself, when he was in the senate, voted against the debt ceiling, these people that he is suggest want the country to go into default are doing the same thing when he was a senator, he changed his mind. absolutely not. did he vote against. he has spoken to that that was a political vote answered has learned from that but at the time, congress wasn't threatening to say we are not going to pay our bills unless we get what we want, deeper cuts in medicare than required or tank the economy. this false equivalence needs to stop. the barrier to progress here is not the president. we need more republicans in congress to think like republicans in the country who are seeking compromise, seeking balance, because we are poised

here to really grow. if washington can do its part and not get in the way, our economies continue to grow, we can make big progress. >> this a president we are going to see, hey, he is reaching out more than he did in the second term or is this a president who largely has said, no, i need a larger army. i need to use my campaign machinery and rally the people who voted for me behind causes? which president are we going to see? >> not an either/or. obviously, we are going to seek common ground with republicans in congress. >> where is that? >> we think it is going to be around balanced deficit reductions, measures to grow the economy and the middle class. >> gun control? >> if votes will come up for some of these gun safety measures, like clips, like universal background checks, absolutely stlachl consensus in america on this i think we can get that here on capitol hill. >> let me -- as you know there are a lot of democrats out there voicing -- looking at this package the president wants on gun control measures. let me read one of them this is

a democrat from alaska, i think they have got a long haul here, talking about you-all. to be frank, i feel like it is going to be hard for any of these pieces of legislation to pass at this point. not just republicans we are talking about, it's democrats as well, a lot of them up for re-election. you know this very well, how tough it is in some of these states, swing states, western state, interior western states, where it's very difficult, a difficult call. is the president on the phone with them saying, here's why you got to come with me? >> we are going to make our case. we are going to make our case directly to lawmakers. we are going to make our case to the vice president, the president, the cabinet and to the public. i think in almost every state of the country, right this is a tough issue, for some democrats, some republicans. like a lot of issue we are dealing with, immigration, how we reduce our deficit have strong feelings. we think if you look at the public on some of these measures, i think knute newtown changed the debate. sadly, it took a tragedy like that seeing a lot of people. by the way you democrats and republicans think differently about this issue, post that tragedy. so i think it's going to take a lot of work, it's not going to

be easy. but we think we can get to a point, as we said, i think there are 60 votes in the senate, 219 votes in the house, if the process can just play itself out and we can really get votes on some of these things we think. but it's going to be hard work. >> what's -- as far as you're concerned, the window in a second term for a president to get something done? we certainly hear 14, 16 months and then he's kind of in lame duck status. >> i don't believe that let's look at where we are now, not like casting about -- roaming the halls of the house looking for things to do. whether it is deficit reduction, energy, gun control, safety, immigration, these are all stacked up right now. so this is going to take us, you know, well through the year. so no, we look at this as the challenges and opportunities are enormous. the economy is still too weak, we have a lot to do not like washington is just going to shutdown. we -- >> surely not the first 16 months. >> yeah. >> but you can see that there

will be a point at which people begin to look at -- >> well. >> 2016. >> we are getting ahead of ourselves, i don't think in the spring -- >> big agenda. >> people are going to be sitting around saying we are not going to do anything until 2017 that is not the way things work. >> finally, just for this year, do you see immigration reform passing and being signed this year? do you see some form of gun control passing and being signed thissier? >> no reason that immigration reform first shunt pass. i think there is a huge consensus, business community you people around the country, the faith community, the legislative process those work its way through. this is the moment. the stars seem to be lined to finally get comprehensive immigration reform. we would expect that i think on gun safety, with avenue gee very good opportunity. we took some executive actions, obviously but a lot congress needs to do here. as you mentioned, it is going to be a hard battle but we are confident and one reason we want to stay in communication with the american people. i think there is going to be action. >> where to next? >> for me? >> yes. >> i'm going to enjoy this week.

a special moment for those of us that started this when no one gave us a chance, even when we thought we had little chance to win. six years ago today, just starting our primary campaign, this is a remarkable journey and we are all just going to treasure this week. >> enjoy tomorrow, david plouffe, senior white house adviser. thanks. >> thanks. next up, we will talk to senator john barrasso about where he sees areas of compromise. [ man ] i've been out there most of my life.

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looking at a live picture of the white house. actually, the president and first family are not there right now. we are told they are at the metropolitan ame church in d.c., paying tribute in a special service to martin luther king jr. as we know, the martin luther king jr. holiday is there tomorrow. coincides with the public inaugural festivities. today here in washington, we are having the official inaugural activities, the swearing-in of the vice president, which has already happened and the president, which will happen in the 11 a.m. hour. i am joined now by republican senator john barrasso from wyoming. he is the chairman of the senate republican policy committee and as they might stay in wyoming this is not your first rodeo this inaugural? >> no can kickers this is actually the ninth time i'm seeing a different president come into office. my dad took me to john kennedy's inauguration when i was 8. we come every time, republican and democrat, because of this great country. my dad, as a guy, had to quit school in the ninth grade, fought in the battle of the bull

only and spent his life pushing wheel barrels of heavy wet cement. pushing cement now to in one legislation, pushing legislation but we always want any president to succeed, to do well that means america does well and americans do well. it's interesting that you mention that because there was a poll recently that cnn took and the question was do you hope that president obama's mollcies will fail? republicans, 52% said yes. independents, 28% said yes, democrats 4%. so 52% of republicans in this poll said they hope president obama's policies will fail. >> there is a difference between policies and the person. the president, to me, has -- really has a big problem with spending. he is addicted to spending and those are policies that will hurt our country long term. we need to focus on getting people back to work, focus on jobs, the economy, the debt and the spending. that's what will improve the quality of life for american

families and for hard-working taxpayers. people feel they want to get value for their tax dollars and they are not getting it now, candy. >> might be a distinction without much difference though people saying i want him to fail and you are saying it is policies, i don't like his policies and if they go in place you certainly you don't want those poll cities to feel. >> this is a time of divided government. we have re-elected majority leadership in the house and we have a re-elected president but it's time to divide a government you can actually do big things for the country. >> so, what big things? what big thing is that -- >> specifically, have to deal with the debt, at $16 interest. you want to continue with the social safety negotiate the good, the bad and the ugly parts of that you have to have a vibrant economy. you have to have growth of the economy, but i need to see policies will actually do that. we don't see them now. >> i spoke with david plouffe in the segment before this. he said that he is confident

there are enough vote he is in the huntsd requisite 60 votes in the senate to pass universal background checks for gun owners and limiting the clips, those high-capacity magazine clips that i can fire off so many rounds to 10 and under. do you think that's so? do you think congress would pass a ban on those clips i with ten or over and a universal background check is that gonna happen? >> no, i don't think it will. candy, that gets beside the major issues this face american families you can jobs and the economy and the debt and spending that's where people are focused. that's the big anxiety of this country. >> sure, i agree with you, but as you know, you deal with a lot of things up there and the white house, people and their families deal with a loft things, one of the things out there are is gun control of some sort, addresses newtown, gun control or better access to mental health. you know the president will push that. >> as doctor, as a -- i can tell

you the president essentially ignored the issues of mental health and violence in society in the media and video games and he has focused so much on what may be happening at gun shows or gun shelves and gun stores that i think he is failing to try to find a solution to the problem of the tragedy of newtown. no one wants that to happen. but the legislation that he is promoti promoting, david plouffe may have said they had 60 votes, i would really welcome the opportunity to have a fair and open debate on this, on the floor of the united states senate, but i don't think that senator harry reid even brings it to the senate floor because he has six democrats up for election in two years in states were the president received fewer than 42% of the votes. and he doesn't want his democrats to have to choose between their own constituents and the president's positions. >> what about immigration? seems too me that is something in the interest of the republican party that you-all would like to see get passed, some kind of immigration reform.

will that happen this year? >> i mean, i'm child of immigrants. that is the history of this country. immigration is good and important for our country. legal immigration needs to really be modernized. marco rubio is working on that we need to find ways. we are educating so many people and then telling them to leave the country who are from other countries, go back, with he don't want you here. we have issues of labor that we need additional labor. we need to deal with immigration and i think we will, candy. >> quickly, you're on the committee that will listen to testimony from secretary of state hillary clinton this week on benghazi and what she knew about it. what else -- we know that there was a breakdown somehow in getting appropriate security to benghazi. what else do you need to know? >> the president promised right when this happened that people would be brought to justice. where is the justice? >> they did fire -- there were people punished in at the state department what else do you

want? >> i have seen the videos and the surveillance cameras and things from the drones. there were people, terrorists who came into essentially u.s. ter toe, our backers our consulate and murdered americans and that's hot president said was going to be brought to justice. so far, as of today there are noment is the being questioned, nothing is done. >> is that a secretary of state thing? >> asked her that i want to know what lessons have been learned so the new secretary of state will not be put in that position again and i want to know what she was doing. did she give any orders through this whole pros she is in took a loot at it before, during and after the attacks. >> finely, what do you make of the tone of the president since the election when it comes to issues like the debt ceiling? you said republicans were more flood throwing the country back into recession, talking about gun control, saying, ask, you should call your congressman and ask why they are against us, is it because of the nra, they care more about them than they did

about first graders are. what do you make of the tone of the president at this point? >> the president, candy you seems so fix said. the president seems so fix said on demonizing republicans that he is blinded to the opportunities as well as the obligations that he has to deal with big problems in this country on debt and entitlements. >> the same problems on the republican side as well? >> the president if he hits the reset bunt, like did he with russia, time to hit the reset but the within republicans and look to the inclusions of the major problems and divided government a perfect time do it, candy. >> senator john barrasso, thanks for joining us this morning. >> thanks for having me. coming up, the next four years with former senator russ feingold, former speaker of the house newt gingrich, "usa today's" susan page and cnn's ron brownstein. i have low testosterone. there, i said it.

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i'm candy crowley on the national mall in washington, d.c. president barack obama's second term begins in a little more than two hours from right now, when he will be taking the oath of office in a private ceremony at the white house. joining me here to talk about that second term. >> former democratic senator russ feingold, former house speaker newt gingrich, "usa today's" susan page, our on cnn political analyst ron brownstein. thank you all for being here. let me talk first about just the

general tone in washington now, because we have had athe prery of six weeks, the democratic side, the president's side, the house side. from what we hear, he will be up there talking about automaticity tomorrow. what will it be the day after? >> i think things are moderating. i think the president's tone will be terrific. people will know he won't election on a decisive basis and i think people on the republican side are seeing that being confrontational, obstructionist is not going to work for them either, i'm little more optimistic than maybe you are. >> you think republicans? >> both sides. both sides. i do think that. >> the president has been pretty tough, mr. speaker. >> the president has. but i think there is a desire that extends beyond that i did a show with tavis smiley and congressman marsha fun, the new head of the congressional black caucus on the panel, talking about poverty and we worked out an agreement she is going to go to her congressional black caucus and ask those 42 members

to go to 42 republican districts for three days and i will ask republicans to match up and go to the 42 districts. actually would have a genuine dialogue for six days. and go t actually would have a genuine dialogue for six days. to match districts. actually would have a genuine dialogue for six days. and go t actually would have a genuine dialogue for six days. members from both sides sharing ideas. i think you need that structural innovation in order to break out of the current bitterness and get better. i think people want to do that they are sick of the constant fighting and obstruction. >> you certainly know that from the american purk you can't meet in the middle if you don't know where the other person is coming from. >> that's right. >> ron, when you look ahead, i talked to david plouffe earlier, i think we got 60 votes in the u.s. senate for, you know, bringi bringing down the capacity of those magazine, 60 votes for universal background checks. doesn't sound like that even when you talk to democrats. >> the positive of the second term, something speaker gingrich

and senator feingold lived through. there is no alternative but working together that is the positive kind of precedent that you could point to. on a lot of these issues, it will be hard. gun control is an issue historically divided booth parties n 1994, they could pass it because they do compel blue state republicans to fill in those votes. immigration, i think the prospects are better. i think there is going to be an issue, a large number of republicans, especially in the senate, see an incentive in getting something done. the question can be john boehner bring up another bill in the house majority of republicans likely to oppose. how many times can you do that and remain speaker? >> let me get susan. >> i hope the senator and spraerk right this is the time we should be optimistic. i have a hard time see it.

contrast this tone with what we saw four years ago when barack obama was inaugurated the first time, the first time and there was a great swelling, i think, of hope that he would be able to break the party san gridlock, a new kind of politics. there are issues including the debt ceiling and gun control. immigration san issue which there may well be a political consensus but hard to see the two sides coming together in a significantly new, bipartisan way, amongst the other issues. >> on the debt, on gun, immigration is in the interest of the republican party to get off the table. >> before this candidate -- the last candidate for president, the last two canned the das for president on the republican side, george bush and john mccain for comprehensive immigration reform. enormous support for republicans in my state for immigration reform and something essential to the economy as well as important to so many other

people in our country. i'm more optimistic about that thanking than anythin than anything. >> you guys are a happy pair today. >> susan made a key point. not just the president and vice president, and the congress, there are 537 elected eofficials in this city. they can do lots of different things to create different environment russ. when calista and i left the inaugural in 2009, the president had given three great speeches, one here just before the election in northern virginia, one at grant park and then the inaugural address. i said if he governs like those three speeches, he will be eisenhower around he will split the republican party. three or four weeks later, he sits down with nancy pelosi and harry reid, passed 780 billion in stimulus, no one having read the bill and the republicans gut it and the speeches were wrong. the president tomorrow is going to sound right, okay? if he follows through on tomorrow's speech, he has a chance to be eisenhower. i don't think he will. i think he wants to be roosevelt in his second term. but that's neither here nor

there. if congressional republicans can reach out on issues, take the case of gun control, i think the house judiciary committee ought to hold hearings in chicago. this is the president's hometown. the mayor is the president's former chief of staff. they have very strict gun control. and they are the murder capital of the united states, 516 dead last year. i think having a hearing on what happened before we rush into the next, you know , panacea, would be a useful exercise on a non-partisan basis. >> this idea and the other idea the speaker talked about about members of the black caucus going into republican district is kind of fascinating. part of the problem we have is the district agreements have been sorted out into the two parties almost preciselism they are really representing very different americas at this point. 80% of the house republicans are in districts that are more white than the national average in the population, two-thirds of democrats are in districts more non-white than the national average the republican coalition

this last election, 90% mitt romney's votes came from whites in 40% of the country that is non-white. they are representing very different coalitions that don't feel a great affinity for one another t requires the leadership to lead their voters, i think, toward accepting the rate that we are a closely divided country. neither of us is going to go away. >> let me ask all of you to stand by, when we come back, talk a little bit about foreign policy and maybe a tiny bit about 2016. oh!

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we are back with former senator russ feingold, former house speaker newt gingrich and the stellar susan page and ron brownstein. thank you all for being here. i want to play you -- this is a couple of bits of the president talking about al qaeda and terrorism. >> al qaeda is on the path to defeat. war in afghanistan is winding down. al qaeda has been decimated. al qaeda's on the run and bin laden is dead. >> so my question out of this is algeria. northern africa has now, for a long time, we heard about yemen and somalia, places like that, but now hearing about algeria,

mali. what -- it seems like it has become or been allowed to become a very dangerous place. >> this is something i worked on in the senate, on the africa subcommittee and been working on for the last couple of years. north africa is a very dangerous place in the terms of the growth of al qaeda. the guy that masterminded this thing, mactwent with bin laden n afghanistan in the 1990s 3,000 algerians came back to algeria, came took a group that katered to al qaeda. they are coordinating with groups in mali, with groups in algeria, al shabaab, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, these are all -- if we think this san isolated incident, we say the hostage thing is even we can move on now you we are making a terrible mistake. we have to have a national conversation about the nature of this threat and the fact that

they are coordinating and that this thing is not done. >> so, al qaeda is not on the path to defeat. al qaeda has not been des mated. al qaeda is like whack-a-mole? chase them out of afghanistan? >> definite-at rise in north africa and we are not used to dealing with that part of the world but we have to get used to it. we have to learn about it and have a serious, sustained attention. they have sustain aid tension. we don't have it on this subject and we need to >> mr. speaker? >> yeah, i don't think it's like whack-a-mole, i think it is like a virus and we haven't had any honest epidemiology. there is a movie called requests america at risk" we went through case-by-case by case the refusal to take seriously this is bipartisan, by the way, the first briefing i got on this was in december of 2001 at the cia. and they said, look, we are trying to hunt down 5,000 people in al qaeda. there is a potential pool of 65 to 100 million recruits. what happened we are doing is setting up a narrowly focused

iraq/afghanistan world view when they are spreading across the whole planet from the philippines to frank lit united states. and i think we greatly underestimate how many places you're going to have trouble in the next how many places you're going to have trouble in the next decade. >> it is going to be different from the first response we had after 9/11. we're not going to be invading iraq and afghanistan with u.s. troops. we're going to have a very different approach. we know that because that's president obama's preference and that's the preference of the people he put now named as secretary of state and secretary of defense. it's a different u.s. response. much more limited, more strategic, more dependent on drones. >> frankly, superior approach because what happened to the bush administration is he decided to invade iraq, a country that wasn't even on the list of al qaeda, completely distracted us from this growth that the speaker talked about. this has been going on all over the world but we focus on a country-by-country basis. president obama gets it on this

and he is appointing people who understand the delicate nature of trying to look at the inner connections and i'm very pleased about that. >> i agree with susan about what the u.s. and u.s. would not do in mali andalgeria and all of that. could it be distracting to an agenda if things start to blow up overseas? >> the longer you hang around 1600 pennsylvania avenue, the odds start rising against you and bad things happen in the world that you're going to have to deal with. the issue in africa is more acute going forward because africa kind of looms as part of this changing energy equation. much more energy opportunity and more western investment and creating more vulnerability to these kind of things. it is clearly going to be on the agenda and, you're right. as you, the term, as the term extends for president, the chance for things to go wrong on the world rises for them, too. >> part of the problem is, we think if things go wrong, we just can't focus on domestic

issues. we can't be taken by surprise like we were on 9/11. that is the problem. we were having impeachment trials instead of realizing obama was active. we need to be as focused on domestic issues as we are on foreign issues. >> are we? >> we're not. >> nobody wants to think deeply enough about what's going on. we talk about the iranian potential nuclear weapon. pakistan is probably building more nuclear weapons than any other country in the world. pakistan is a very fragile system that can disintegrate at any time. we're not prepared for that. the whole challenge of the persian gulf, we're not prepared for that. i think it's accurate to say that by appointing the secretary of state and the secretary of defense that he has, john kerry and hagel, they're communicating accurately the minimalist approach to the world. you can make a case for that. but neither, neither of them nor the president has a positive

vision of how you're going to deal with a worldwide virus that is increasingly destabilizing the planet. and that's what's happening from pakistan through north africa to syria and i think potentially in europe and the united states. >> i have less than a minute here. i need one-word answers from you. joe biden made a bit of a slip up talking about how hap he was going to be president of the united states. >> joe biden would be happy to be president of the united states and i think he is planning to run, if possible. >> quickly. >> i think he wants to, but i'm not sure he will. >> why not? >> the american people deserve a break from presidential campaigns. >> oh, there's one. >> thank you, all, so much this morning. >> thank you. next up, roosevelt, kennedy, lincoln, atchison, one of these names is not like the others. we'll have the story of a man some say was president for one day.

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the seventh time in u.s. history that inauguration day falls on a sunday. each time the president to be has opted for a private sunday ceremony, sometimes followed by a monday repeat for the public.

exception the newly elected zachary taylor, who for religious reasons would not be sworn in on sunday. it left a hole in history. 24 hours without a u.s. president. but don't go telling that to the director of the atchison historic society in kansas. he says on that sunday in 1849, when president-elect taylor would not take the oath of office as the 12th president, james was no longer president and his vice president jorgeorg dallas was also gone, that left the country in the hands of the third in the line of succession, the senior member of the senate. >> david rice atchison was the real 12th president of the united states. >> chris taylor is in charnel of what he calls the world's smallest presidential library. a tribute to the 24 hours the late senator from missouri spent as david rice atchison. a nano second in history, also etched